Nigel Tufnel

In
early 1964, guitarists David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel
formed The Originals. In late '64 they founded The
Thamesmen with bassist Ronnie Pudding (formerly with
The Cheap Dates) and drummer John Pepys (formerly with
The Leslie Cheswick Soul Explosion). They released their first
single, Gimmie Some Money in '65. After they toured
with keyboardist Jan van der Kvelk, they changed their name
to The Dutchmen. After going thru various name changes,
including The Ravebreakers, The Doppel Gang, The
Silver Service, The Bisquits, The Love Bisquits
and The Tufnel-St.Hubbins Group, they finally settled on
Spinal Tap and released their 1965 single (Listen To The)
Flower People, written by Pudding. In '67, Pudding
left and was replaced by Derek Smalls (formerly with the all
white Jamaican band, Skaface). That same year Spinal Tap
released their self titled first album (released in the U.S. as Spinal Tap Sings (Listen To The) Flower People And Other
Favourites) which went gold. Their follow up album, We
Are The Flower People sold poorly. They toured Europe in
support of The Matchstick Men, developing a harder twin
guitar style. In '69, they released the live album, Silent But
Deadly.

In '72,
drummer Pepys died in tragedy and was replaced by Eric
Childs (formerly with Woolcave). They recorded and
released Brainhammer and Blood To Let in
'73. In '74, they recorded and released Intravenus de Milo.
In '75, they released their concept album, The Sun Never
Sweats, with keyboardist Ross MacLochness (formerly
with Kilt Kids) and replaced drummer Childs who died
in a sudden tragedy with session drummer Peter James Bond. In
'77, they had their first hit single in the U.S. with Nice And
Stinky from their 1975 live in Japan album, Jap Habit.
In '80, the group signed with Polymer Records, replaced
drummer Bond (who had died with tragic suddeness) with
Mick Shrimpton (formerly with the Eurovision Song Contest
house band) and released Shark Sandwich. In '82, they
released Smell The Glove (also known as The
Black Album). Director Marty DiBergi interviewed the
group on film over the course of six years and finally in 1984, the
documentary This Is Spinal Tap was released. In 1992,
the band recorded their comeback album Break Like The Wind
with side line help from Jeff Beck and Joe Satriani.

In 1984 the actors, musicians and writers Michael
McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer and
director Rob Reiner made a side-splitting rock
documentary spoof This is Spinal Tap, a
highly successful persiflage on the hard rock and
heavy metal scene and music. The soundtrack was
written and played by the three musicians/actors and
a couple of guest musicians.Break like the wind was supposed to be a kind
of studio successor to do all the fun and satirical
stuff all over again. The main difference between
this album and the soundtrack is the amount of big
musician names on Break like the wind. Steve
Lukather produced and arranged three songs and did
some musical contributions to them. Additional
guitar on Just begin again, piano on Clam
caravan and guitar on Break like the wind.
The appearance on that last song is a very special
one, because Luke arranged the most hilarious string
of guitar solo's in rock history: a complete chaos
done by Luke, Slash, Joe Satriani and Jeff Beck. The
highlight of this album.

The album contains, though it's nowhere mentioned on
the sleeve, a cd-rom video of the single Bitch
school.

Spinal Tap about Steve Lukather: Toto and Cher
producer and session guitarist for Rod Stewart,
David Crosby and Wilson Phillips who oversaw four
tracks on 1992 Tap album Break like the wind.
David: "Hes a very strange human being." Derek:
"Hes got a tattoo on his rectal tissue." David:
"And hell show it to you, too. He kept going, "Can
you see the ship? Does this look normal? " (ME)
Told band he had recorded his guitar solo on
Break like the wind in the nude.

1 Bitch school
(Derek Smalls, David
St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel)
2 The majesty of rock
(Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins, Nigel
Tufnel)
3 Diva fever (Derek
Smalls, David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel)
4 Just begin again
(Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins, Nigel
Tufnel)
5 Cash on delivery
(Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins, Nigel
Tufnel)
6 The sun never sweats
(Derek Smalls, David
St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel)
7 Rainy day sun
(Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins, Nigel
Tufnel)
8 Break like the wind(Derek Smalls, David
St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel)
9 Stinkin'up the great outdoors
(Derek Smalls, David
St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel)
10 Springtime (Derek
Smalls, David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel)
11 Clam caravan
(Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins, Nigel
Tufnel)
12 Christmas with the devil
(Derek Smalls, David
St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel)
13 The old grey man
(Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins, Nigel
Tufnel)
14 All the way home
(David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel)

The single
Bitch school is extracted from the album
Break like the wind. The video clip
of the single is available on the album as a
cd-rom clip.

Lt.
Hookstratten: This is our monthly "At Ease" weekend.
It gives us a chance to let our hair down, although I see
you've got a head start in that department. I shouldn't
talk, though, I'm getting a little shaggy myself. I'd better
not stand too close to you, people might think I'm part of
the band. I'm joking, of course.

Marty
DiBergi: David St. Hubbins... I must admit I've
never heard anybody with that name.David St.
Hubbins: It's an unusual name, well, he was an
unusual saint, he's not a very well known saint.Marty
DiBergi: Oh, there actually is, uh... there was a
Saint Hubbins?David St.
Hubbins: That's right, yes.Marty
DiBergi: What was he the saint of? David St.
Hubbins: He was the patron saint of quality
footwear.[last lines]Nigel
Tufnel: [on what he would do if he
couldn't be a rock star] Well, I suppose I could, uh,
work in a shop of some kind, or... or do, uh, freelance, uh,
selling of some sort of, uh, product. You know...Marty
DiBergi: A salesman?Nigel
Tufnel: A salesman, like maybe in a, uh,
haberdasher, or maybe like a, uh, um... a chapeau shop or
something. You know, like, "Would you... what size do you
wear, sir?" And then you answer me.Marty
DiBergi: Uh... seven and a quarter.Nigel
Tufnel: "I think we have that." See, something like
that I could do.Marty
DiBergi: Yeah... you think you'd be happy doing
something like-...Nigel
Tufnel: "No; we're all out. Do you wear black?" See,
that sort of thing I think I could probably... muster up.Marty
DiBergi: Do you think you'd be happy doing that?Nigel
Tufnel: Well, I don't know - wh-wh-... what're the
hours?Ian Faith:
Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a
good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful.[Nigel is playing a soft piece on the
piano]Marty
DiBergi: It's very pretty.Nigel
Tufnel: Yeah, I've been fooling around with it for a
few months.Marty
DiBergi: It's a bit of a departure from what you
normally play.Nigel
Tufnel: It's part of a trilogy, a musical trilogy
I'm working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys,
I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don't
know why.Marty
DiBergi: It's very nice.Nigel
Tufnel: You know, just simple lines intertwining,
you know, very much like - I'm really influenced by Mozart
and Bach, and it's sort of in between those, really. It's
like a Mach piece, really. It's sort of...Marty
DiBergi: What do you call this?Nigel
Tufnel: Well, this piece is called "Lick My Love
Pump".Artie
Fufkin: You know what I want you to do? Will you do
something for me?David St.
Hubbins: What?Artie
Fufkin: Do me a favor. Just kick my ass, okay? Kick
this ass for a man, that's all. Kick my ass. Enjoy. Come on.
I'm not asking, I'm telling with this. Kick my ass.[Nigel, introducing the Stonehenge theme
concert]Nigel
Tufnel: In ancient times, hundreds of years before
the dawn of history, an ancient race of people... the
Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were
doing...Lt.
Hookstratten: May I start by saying how thrilled we
are to have you here. We are such fans of your music and all
of your records. I'm not speaking of yours personally, but
the whole genre of the rock and roll.[Asked by a reporter if this is the end of
Spinal Tap]David St.
Hubbins: Well, I don't really think that the end can
be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does
the end feel like? It's like saying when you try to
extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the
universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean?
How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's
stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So,
what's the end, you know, is my question to you.Derek
Smalls: We're lucky.David St.
Hubbins: Yeah. Derek
Smalls: I mean, people should be envying us, you
know.David St.
Hubbins: I envy us.Derek
Smalls: Yeah.David St.
Hubbins: I do.Derek
Smalls: Me too.[Asked to write his own epitaph]David St.
Hubbins: Here lies David St. Hubbins... and why not?Mick
Shrimpton: As long as there's, you know, sex and
drugs, I can do without the rock and roll.[Reading a review of Spinal Tap's latest
album]Marty
DiBergi: "This pretentious ponderous collection of
religious rock psalms is enough to prompt the question,
'What day did the Lord create Spinal Tap, and couldn't he
have rested on that day too?'"David St.
Hubbins: I do not, for one, think that the problem
was that the band was down. I think that the problem *may*
have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage
that was in danger of being *crushed* by a *dwarf*. Alright?
That tended to understate the hugeness of the object.Ian Faith:
I really think you're just making much too big a thing out
of it.Derek
Smalls: Making a big thing out of it would have been
a good idea.David St.
Hubbins: We say, "Love your brother." We don't say
it really, but...Nigel
Tufnel: We don't literally say it.David St.
Hubbins: No, we don't say it.Nigel
Tufnel: We don't really, literally mean it.David St.
Hubbins: No, we don't believe it either, but...Nigel
Tufnel: But we're not racists.David St.
Hubbins: But that message should be clear, anyway.Nigel
Tufnel: We're anything but racists.Nigel
Tufnel: You can't really dust for vomit.David St.
Hubbins: It's such a fine line between stupid, and
clever.David St.
Hubbins: Well, I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I
weren't under such heavy sedation.David St.
Hubbins: Dozens of people spontaneously combust each
year. It's just not really widely reported.Nigel
Tufnel: It's like, how much more black could this
be? and the answer is none. None more black.David St.
Hubbins: They were still booing him when we came on
stage.Jeanine
Pettibone: You don't do heavy metal in Dubly, you
know.Nigel
Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right
across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...Marty
DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?Nigel
Tufnel: Exactly.Marty
DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any
louder?Nigel
Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not
ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten.
You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the
way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from
there? Where?Marty
DiBergi: I don't know.Nigel
Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need
that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?Marty
DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.Nigel
Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.Marty
DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make
ten be the top number and make that a little louder?Nigel
Tufnel: [pause] These go to
eleven.[Nigel Tufnel is showing Marty DiBergi one
of his favorite guitars]Nigel
Tufnel: The sustain, listen to it.Marty
DiBergi: I don't hear anything.Nigel
Tufnel: Well you would though, if it were playing.[Derek Smalls sets off a metal detector at
the airport]Airport
Security Officer: Do you have any artificial plates
or limbs?Derek
Smalls: Er, not really.[Marty compliments Nigel on his tee shirt]Nigel
Tufnel: You like this?Marty
DiBergi: It's very nice. It looks like hollow wood.Nigel
Tufnel: This is my exact inner structure, done in a
tee shirt. Exactly medically accurate. See?Marty
DiBergi: So in other words if we were to take all
your flesh and blood...Nigel
Tufnel: Take them off. This is what you'd see.Marty
DiBergi: It wouldn't be green though.
[Nigel points at Marty]Nigel
Tufnel: It is green. You see how your blood looks
blue.Marty
DiBergi: Yeah, well that's just the vein. That's the
color of the vein. The blood is actually red.Nigel
Tufnel: Oh then, maybe it's not green. Anyway this
is what I sleep in sometimes.[reading a review of the album "Shark
Sandwich"]Marty
DiBergi: The review for "Shark Sandwich" was merely
a two word review which simply read "Shit Sandwich".Derek
Smalls: We're very lucky in the band in that we have
two visionaries, David and Nigel, they're like poets, like
Shelley and Byron. They're two distinct types of
visionaries, it's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my
role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that,
kind of like lukewarm water.Marty
DiBergi: "This tasteless cover is a good indication
of the lack of musical invention within. The musical growth
of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water
in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry."Nigel
Tufnel: That's just nitpicking, isn't it?David St.
Hubbins: Can you play a bass line like Nigel used to
on "Big Bottom"? Can you double that? You might recall the
line's in fifths.Viv Savage:
Oh yeah, I've got two hands here.[discussing Nigel's Guitar collection]Nigel
Tufnel: Look... still has the old tag on, never even
played it.Marty
DiBergi: [points his finger]
You've never played...?Nigel
Tufnel: Don't touch it!Marty
DiBergi: We'll I wasn't going to touch it, I was
just pointing at it.Nigel
Tufnel: Well... don't point! It can't be played.Marty
DiBergi: Don't point, okay. Can I look at it?Nigel
Tufnel: No. no. That's it, you've seen enough of
that one.[When asked what happened to their first
drummer]David St.
Hubbins: He died in a bizarre gardening accident...Nigel
Tufnel: Authorities said... best leave it...
unsolved.Marty
DiBergi: Do you feel that playing rock 'n' roll
music keeps you a child? That is, keeps you in a state of
arrested development?Derek
Smalls: No. No. No. I feel it's like, it's more like
going, going to a, a national park or something. And
there's, you know, they preserve the moose. And that's,
that's my childhood up there on stage. That moose, you know.Marty
DiBergi: So when you're playing you feel like a
preserved moose on stage?Derek
Smalls: Yeah.Nigel
Tufnel: We've got Armadillos in our trousers. It's
really quite frightening.[first lines]Marty
DiBergi: Hello; my name is Marty DiBergi. I'm a
filmmaker. I make a lot of commercials. That little dog that
chases the covered wagon underneath the sink? That was mine.
In 1966, I went down to Greenwich Village, New York City to
a rock club called Electric Banana. Don't look for it; it's
not there anymore. But that night, I heard a band that for
me redefined the word "rock and roll". I remember being
knocked out by their... their exuberance, their raw power -
and their punctuality. That band was Britain's now-legendary
Spinal Tap. Seventeen years and fifteen albums later, Spinal
Tap is still going strong. And they've earned a
distinguished place in rock history as one of England's
loudest bands. So in the late fall of 1982, when I heard
that Tap was releasing a new album called "Smell the Glove",
and was planning their first tour of the United States in
almost six years to promote that album, well needless to say
I jumped at the chance to make the documentary - the, if you
will, "rockumentary" - that you're about to see. I wanted to
capture the... the sights, the sounds... the smells of a
hard-working rock band, on the road. And I got that; I got
more... a lot more. But hey, enough of my yakkin'; whaddaya
say? Let's boogie!Bobbi
Flekman: Money talks, and bullshit walks.Ian Faith:
Nigel gave me a drawing that said 18 inches. Now, whether or
not he knows the difference between feet and inches is not
my problem. I do what I'm told.David St.
Hubbins: But you're not as confused as him are you.
I mean, it's not your job to be as confused as Nigel.Ian Faith:
The Boston gig has been cancelled...David St.
Hubbins: What?Ian Faith:
Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it though, it's not a big
college town.David St.
Hubbins: We are Spinal Tap from the UK - you must be
the USA!David St.
Hubbins: [singing] Big bottom,
big bottom / Talk about mud flaps, my girl's got 'em![while playing a video game]Viv Savage:
Quite exciting, this computer magic!Derek
Smalls: Remember at Luton Palace we were talking
about writing a rock musical based on the life of Jack the
Ripper.David St.
Hubbins: Yeah!
[singing]David St.
Hubbins: You're a naughty one...Derek
Smalls,
David St. Hubbins: Saucy Jack...David St.
Hubbins: You're a haughty one, saucy Jack.Ian Faith:
I've got a small bit of bad news.Derek
Smalls: Makes a change doesn't it.Ian Faith:
We've been cancelled here.David St.
Hubbins: At the hotel?Ian Faith:
No. The gig is cancelled.[David raises hand after Ian Faith quits
as the band's manager]Derek
Smalls: Can I raise a practical question at this
point? Are we gonna do "Stonehenge" tomorrow?David St.
Hubbins: *NO*, we're not gonna fucking do
"Stonehenge"!Marty
DiBergi: You two were at school together?Nigel
Tufnel: We're not university material.David St.
Hubbins: What's that on your finger?Nigel
Tufnel: It's my gum.David St.
Hubbins: What are you doing with it on your finger?Nigel
Tufnel: I might need it later.David St.
Hubbins: Put it on the table, that's terrible.Nigel
Tufnel: No, I might forget it on the table.David St.
Hubbins: [to Marty] Fucking
awful, you can't take him anywhere.Derek
Smalls: That's not to say I haven't had my visionary
moments. I've taken acid seventy... five, seventy-six times.Marty
DiBergi: 76?Derek
Smalls: Yeah, so I've had my moments in the sky.Derek
Smalls: [on the phone to his
solicitor] Isn't there a law against this sort of thing?
Surely you can't just buy a full page ad in the music papers
and publish your divorce demands.
[pause]Derek
Smalls: What do you mean 'I paid for it'?
[pause]Derek
Smalls: Joint account! Fuck! Can't we just have her
killed? You know people.David St.
Hubbins: [talking about Nigel]
I'm tired of sticking up for his intelligence.[at the pre-tour party, the waiters are
mime artists]Marty
DiBergi: It's such an interesting concept, mixing
mime and food.Morty the
Mime: It's a kick isn't it? Well, I used to be an
actor but I could never remember my lines, so I thought
"just shut up", you know? Don't say nothing. And my father
used to say the same thing to me every dinner time, he used
to say to me "shut up and eat", so that's what we do and
that's the name of the company "shut up and eat".[at the pre-tour party one of the waiters
is on his way back to the kitchen with an entire tray of
food]Morty the
Mime: Whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah. How come
you got so much here?Mime Waiter:
I don't know, they're not eating it.Morty the
Mime: Did you do the wind?Mime Waiter:
I did the wind, I did the wind.Morty the
Mime: No, you don't push the wind away, the wind
comes at you. Ok change those, get the little dwarf canolies.
Come on, don't talk back, mime is money, come on, move it.Nigel
Tufnel: You can't fucking concentrate because your
fucking wife! Simple as that, alright? It's your fucking
wife!David St.
Hubbins: She's not my wife.Nigel
Tufnel: Well whatever FUCK she is, alright? You
can't concentrate!Ian Faith:
They're not gonna release the album... because they have
decided that the cover is sexist.Nigel
Tufnel: Well, so what? What's wrong with bein' sexy?
I mean there's no...Ian Faith:
Sex-IST!David St.
Hubbins: IST!Viv
Savage: [when asked by Marty if he
has a creed he lives by] Have... a good time... all the
time.Bobbi
Flekman: You put a *greased naked woman* on all
fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a
man's arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash,
and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don't
find that offensive? You don't find that sexist?Ian Faith:
This is *1982*, Bobbi, c'mon!Bobbi
Flekman: That's *right*, it's 1982! Get out of the
'60s. We don't have this mentality anymore.Ian Faith:
Well, you should have seen the cover they *wanted* to do! It
wasn't a glove, believe me.Derek
Smalls: [from DVD commentary, about
Marty DiBergi] He doesn't look Italian, does he?Nigel
Tufnel: I think his real last name is DiBergarmo.David St.
Hubbins: No!Derek
Smalls: No, his real last name is DiBergowitz.Nigel
Tufnel: Yeah! DiBergowitz.David St.
Hubbins: No! He's like one of those ...Derek
Smalls: Yeah, he is one of those. Check it out:
DiBergowitz!

Smalls,
Derek Albion (b1941): Derek joined Tap in 1967 after the
departure of Ronnie Pudding, who had left the group for a solo
career. A former member of the all-white Jamaican band Skaface,
Smalls was a student at the London School of Design (beginning at
age 17) and a member of groups such as Milage and the bar band Teddy
Noise, a power duo in which he learned the value of playing loud.
Derek grew up in Nilford-on-Null and was not as musically inclined
as his bandmates at a young age. His first girlfriend was an exotic
dancer named Miriam, and he enjoyed boxing for relaxation. After
Tap's 1982 tour of the United States and Tokyo, Smalls found himself
trapped in Japan for eight months when even hypnosis could not help
him find the hotel where he had left his passport. He made the time
pay off by developing a taste for Orientalia, a passion that
continues to this day ("if you've ever at his East London Docklands
flat, check out his collection of ceremonial robes!" says the 1992
official fan club newsletter). During his stay, Derek says he spent
"nights in many hotels with women of many nations. I took to playing
bass in the subway stations, but they don't like the bass in Japan.
It's too low for them." (RL) Later performed in North England pub
circuit in various Tap tribute bands. (GW) Also dabbled writing
jingles in Flemish for the Belgian milk board ("If it was any
richer-it would be cream!"), although he wrote a similar slogan for
the Milk Marketing Board while at the LSD. (LT) Used proceeds to
purchase two uncompleted flats on the docks of London after Tap's
1982 tour. In 1988, Derek replaced Geoff Hough in the Christian
hard-rock band Lambsblood, whose members included Moke, a former Tap
roadie. (HR) Like Nigel, a collector of fine cars, including at one
time a Lamborghini (which he lost in a divorce settlement), a Land
Rover and a Chevrolet Monza. (TR) A championship caliber Monopoly
player and orchid and rose grower (he wrote on the Tap Web page, "It
may sound strange for a bloke like me to have a green thumb, but my
own personal hybrid, the Big Bottom Rose, was given 'best of row' at
the Chelsea Flower Show"), he was portrayed by DiBergi as the
mediator of the band during its turbulent 1982 U.S. tour. (TS) He
was known for always seeking the "rational explanation" of any
situation, and for his sarcastic asides. When Jeanine arrives to
join the band in Milwaukee, for instance, he comments to Nigel,
"Visitor's Day, isn't it?" Earlier, in Atlanta, when Ian explains
that Polymer has delayed release of "Smell the Glove" to experiment
with some "new packaging materials," an exasperated Derek comments,
"They got monkeys opening it or what?" Besides his affinity with
lukewarm water, he also feels a kinship with snakes, keeping several
as pets (including a large boa named Clarence). "They are my soul
brothers, in a way. There is the slinky quality to them, which I try
to apply to my stage persona." Derek made his film debut before the
opening credits of Marco Zamboni's "Roma 79" (1976). Derek in 1998
achieved his dream of working with children, landing a job as a
"floater" at a primary school in Los Angeles (VH1). He also worked
as an assistant crossing guard.

April 14, 2003

Christopher
Guest doesn't especially like hearing his movies -
This Is
Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and, opening
Wednesday, A Mighty Wind -- described as mockumentaries.

The
55-year-old multi-hyphenate artist argues that while most of his
films are shot in documentary style, they aren't intended to mock
anyone or document anything. They're reality-based, not in a
network-TV sense, but one that allows the assorted dog shows, heavy
metal concerts, community theater productions and folk reunions to
serve as backdrops for comic character studies of people obsessed
with their work or hobbies. Of course, it's much easier for
journalists to label them "mockumentaries" and be done with it.

A Mighty
Wind imagines a scenario in which a group of folk musicians - 40
years removed from the genre's heyday - are brought together as part
of a tribute to their recently deceased manager and financial
mentor. The interpersonal dynamics on display are at once touching
and hilarious, especially those leading up to the long-awaited
reunion of singing sweethearts Mitch & Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara). Baby Boomers will get the biggest kick
out of A Mighty Wind, but, typically, the comedy crosses all
generational boundaries.

MCN:
Audiences of a certain age are going to have a blast trying to guess
which artists inspired the Main Street Singers,
Folksmen
and Mitch & Mickey.

CHRISTOPHER
GUEST: There were a lot of groups like that in those days ...
the Back Porch Majority, the
Rooftop Singers, the
New Christy Minstrels, maybe a half-dozen groups of a dozen or
more people, and they made records that almost all sounded the same.
There were tons of trios the Kingston TrioPeter, Paul
& Mary. Then, there were all the duos Ian & Sylvia, the
Farinas.

MCN:
You seem to have a personal relationship with the music, though.

CG:
This was the kind of music I played myself, in Greenwich Village,
when I was living in New York in the '60s. I played at the Bitter
End and in Washington Square, so I didn't have to do a lot of
research. We picked these three types of groups, because they
represented different kinds of folk music.

CG: It
probably would have added too much baggage, because the undercurrent
of their music was so serious. That's not what the story's about. We
use folk music as a backdrop for a story about these characters and
how they're trying to get back to that life.

We projected
that on top of the main thing, which involves the situation with
Mitch & Mickey. It's very emotional, and that emotion is what's at
the core of the movie. You couldn't lay a heavy civil-rights thing
on top of that.

MCN:
Mitch & Mickey reminded me of Ian & Sylvia, and the fabled
break-up of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and how folkies
would obsess over their relationships.

CG:
There also were Jim & Judy and the
Farinas, and on and
on. There was always some kind of drama going on around the duos.
And, because their songs often were about romance, it only
heightened the drama. So, when Eugene and I were writing the story,
we put this emotional element at the core of the film.

MCN:
There must be something endearing and timeless about the genre. The
XM and Sirius satellite radio services even have channels dedicated
to folk music.

CG:
It's out there. There are young people playing folk music on
campuses. Every major city has its own folk scene and folk clubs.

MCN:
Within the cultural milieus described in your films, the characters
display an almost cult-like obsession with the dog shows, community
theater and heavy-metal scenes. It's their world, and almost nothing
seems to exists outside of it.

CG:
Absolutely.

MCN:
But, you're not mocking these people, as some critics seem to think?

CG: No.
But I am interested in the notion that people can become so obsessed
by their world that they lose sense and awareness of how they appear
to other people. They're so earnest about it. But that's true of so
many things.

MCN:
How do you come up with your ideas?

CG: I
don't work with high-concept things that start with a premise,
"Wouldn't it be funny if there was this spy who met a ..." For me,
it could be, "What about people who sell shoes? That must be a
bizarre world ... when they meet at conventions and talk about
shoes."

That sort of
thing fascinates me. Someone sells urinal cakes on the road. There
are these worlds out there and it doesn't matter what it is. They're
fascinating.

MCN:
The characters are extreme, but also very recognizable.

CG: We
populate the stories with people who share certain traits.
Invariably, someone will say, "I know that guy." Every world has odd
people. After Waiting for Guffman came out, people would come
up to me and say, "I know that guy because he was my theater teacher
in high school."

But, there are
180,000 people like that out there. It's not about one person.
That's human behavior, and it's what I like to watch. I like to sit
in the park and watch people.

MCN: I
was struck by the smiles on the Bohners (John
Michael Higgins
and Jane Lynch). They were part of a contemporary
New
Christy Minstrels-type group, but they could have been part of a
cult.

CG:
With the Main Street Singers, there's this overlay of "What the hell
is going on here? Why are they so happy?" Then, there's their thing
about color therapy.

MCN:
There's a very fine line between wholesome and creepy.
Laurie
Bohner, for instance, has no problem admitting that she once
starred in porn films.

CG:
I've always wondered about those groups, who sing in theme parks.
What's really going on there? There's a kind of forced bliss.

So we give you
a glimpse of this color religion the Bohners are into. That's the
kind of thing we add to the characters.

MCN:
Was there much of a learning curve for the actors playing these
musicians?

CG: No,
they understood immediately. I said, "You know the kind of group
where there's this vaguely, almost religious thing where they're
always very up."

Parker
Posey's amazing at it. There was a bit more of a back story to
her character, but, all we learn about her is that "she was on the
street" before joining the Main Street Singers Sometimes, the more
you don't say about someone, the better it is.

MCN: I
once covered a ventriloquist convention in Las Vegas, and all of
your movies remind me of that experience.

CG: I'd
kill to do that. I did a little bit of ventriloquism in Best in
Show. In fact, I found a journal from my family that went back
200 years, and one of my great, great, great, great ancestors was a
ventriloquist, in London in 1802.

It was eerie
because I did ventriloquism when I was a kid. I never had any
training. The voices just came to me.

MCN:
Working with the same group of actors must be helpful.

CG:
These are people I trust implicitly. I revere their talents and
they're good friends. What could be better than getting to play with
your friends, literally.

MCN: I
imagine you're able to communicate by shorthand?

CG:
They're miles ahead of me. There's not a lot of explaining.
Everything's at a pretty high level of communication.

MCN: You have a core of fans that will see anything you make on the first
weekend. It takes other people time to discover your movies. There's
a delayed response.

CG:
With Spinal Tap, we didn't do anything in the theaters, but
it's done extremely well over the last 20 years in video. Best in
Show has done extremely well in video.

The movies
have a way of seeping out there over time. We don't put them in
2,000 theaters. It wouldn't work that way.

MCN:
How about the marketing ... posters that remind audiences of your
other movies.

CG:
It's all up to me. It's simple and to the point.

How else would
they know what to look for? There aren't many familiar names.

MCN:
Besides collaborating with Eugene Levy on the screenplay, you
also put his character through an emotional wringer sort of a
cross between late-Bob Dylan and early-John Denver.

CG:
We've been working together for about eight years. We both came up
with the same idea for Mitch. Because it played so much against type
for Eugene, we both saw it as a challenge ... a stretch.

In
A Mighty
Wind, Eugene Levy's Mitch Cohen
is to over-the-hill folk icons
what Ozzy Osbourne is to over-the-hill rock gods, which is to
say dazed and confused but strangely lovable.

The role was a
departure for Levy, who's made a tidy career for himself in Hollywood
playing variations on SCTV news anchor Earl Camembert. The addled
musician - half of the legendary singing-sweetheart duo, Mitch & Mickey
-- is nothing at all like the Great North American Doofus character he's
practically trademarked in such studio productions as American Pie,
Bringing Down the House and Father of the Bride. But, that
will hardly come as a surprise to fans of Levy's other SCTV stand-bys:
Bobby Bittman, Stan Schmenge, Sid Dithers, Bruno the Hunchback and
Rockin' Mel Slurrup.

In addition to
their work together on A Mighty Wind, Levy and
Christopher
Guest co-wrote and co-starred in Waiting for Guffman, Best
in Show and TV's D.O.A. Both considered Mitch to be something
of a "challenge" for the 56-year-old native of Hamilton, Ontario.
Like Guest, though, Levy didn't have to do a lot of research for his
assignment in A Mighty Wind. He paid his folk dues as member of
the Northern Lights ("Tears Are Not Enough," on the "We Are The World"
album) and, later, performed in the original Toronto cast of "Godspell"
with Victor Garber, Martin Short, Gilda Radner, and
Andrea
Martin. He also composed "God Loves A Terrier" and "Terrier Style"
for Best in Show.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: So, how much of a stretch was it to play Mitch,
the befuddled folk singer?

EUGENE LEVY: The greatest thing about doing this movie was that
Chris and I both were involved in folk music in the '60s. I had a group,
but I don't think it was at the same level as Chris, because he's an
amazing musician.

The caliber of my musicianship was at the level of kids at school just
picking up guitars and getting some gigs. But, doing the research for
A Mighty Wind -- listening to the groups again -- took me right
back.

EL:
Richard and Mimi Farina also had a reputation of being the
sweethearts of folk music, more so even than Ian & Sylvia.
Richard and Mimi had a softer, more delicate, innocent kind of a sound.
But, it's really about any married couple that performs together, and
then has to live together ... Sonny & Cher.

I thought this was
kind of a charming way for Mitch & Mickey to go. Their music always had
a love theme to it.

MCN: The
era depicted in A Mighty Wind seems to pre-date the
Dylan-goes-electric and angry protest period in folk music.

EL: Yeah,
it takes place in the late '50s, early '60s. We had to cheat a little
bit. To go back that far, our characters would have to be in their 70s.

So, these groups
probably would have had to be popular in the mid-'60s for the timing to
be right.

MCN: The
Main Street Singers reminded me of groups like the Pozo-Seco Singers,
the Rooftop Singers, We Five, the New Christy Minstrels and
Highwaymen, who had hits with songs like "Michael (Row the Boat
Ashore)," "Green, Green," "You Were on My Mind" and "Guantanamera."

EL: Yeah,
by the time you heard the Serendipity Singers do "My roof has a hole in
it, and I might drown ..." on the radio, the folk movement was on its
way out. Then, it was folk-rock and the Byrds ... I was into folk
between about 1963 and 1973.

MCN: I
imagined that the musicians who populate A Mighty Wind are some
of the same people who booed Bob Dylan for going electric at
Newport. The Bohners seemed to be possessed with something almost
demonic.

EL: Chris
and I spent a lot of time developing the characters and making them work
for the story. Our outline alone was 30 pages long.

We tried to take
the characters into different sorts of places, and give them a little
bit of insanity. We wanted to add a demonic quality to these white-bread
characters and their white-bread sounds.

MCN: If
they weren't still singing folk songs, the Bohners (John Michael
Higgins and Jane Lynch) would be leading a cult somewhere,
with their color-based religion.

EL:
Michael's character ... both of them, really ... were really very scary.
And it was all in the guise of these happy-go-lucky, up-with-people
songs.

MCN: Movies, like A Mighty Wind and
Best in Show, are lumped
under the general heading of "mockumentary." But I don't ever get the
feeling that you and Chris are mocking anyone.

EL: That
term really bothers Chris. We don't pick a subject to mock or skewer.
SCTV was described as a "biting satire" on television, but I saw it more
as a character-driven comedy.

The characters
were part of the storylines that ran through each show, and then we went
outside the studio to the town of Melonville, with Mayor Tommy Shanks,
and there would be elections. We created a universe around those
characters.

MCN: I
still break out in a smile just thinking about the Schmenges and Bobby
Bittman.

EL: These
movies are all about characters, too ... putting them into a context.
A Mighty Wind is like a documentary, because the camera follows the
characters around.

It doesn't create
a story you start in one place and end up somewhere else. Our edge
isn't razor-sharp or cutting. It's much softer.

MCN: The
audience certainly roots for Mitch & Mickey to get back together in
song, at least.

EL: This is
a subject Chris and I both loved. We're not putting it up for ridicule.

MCN: The
dog owners and trainers of Best in Show might not agree.

EL: There
was nothing inherently, bitingly satirical we wanted to do about the
world of dog shows and dogs owners. The characters in Best in Show
loved their dogs the same way real dog owners love their dogs when they
put them in dog shows. We weren't sending anything up there. We were
just reflecting something that was real, and we just followed our
characters.

MCN: The
popularity of your truly reality-based movies seems to define the term
"word-of-mouth."

EL: That's
one of the reasons they don't release them like they do
Bringing Down
the House or other commercial comedies that open in 2,000-3,000
theaters. The studios don't think that movies that are a little
off-center will play well in Middle America or America, in general. They
only think they will appeal to a small core of hip people.

MCN: But
everyone I know who's found Best in Show loves it. They can't
wait to rent Guffman.

EL:
Personally, I think that if they had released Best in Show in
2,800 theaters, it would have done great business ... OK? Without star
power, the studios don't know how to market pictures like this.

People might have
gone out to see Best in Show just because it was about dogs. If
they had, I'm sure they would have been surprised by how it made them
laugh.

MCN: It's
taken a while, but when people see the name, Eugene Levy, on a
billboard or commercial for a movie, they assume it is going to be
funny. I suppose American Pie was the movie that did that for
you?

EL: I can
feel it happening, but maybe it's because I'm doing better work.
American Pie was a charming film ...

MCN: Jim's
dad could have been played as yet another doofus father. But, he really
was a great father.

EL: Yeah,
he was. At first, I wasn't anxious to take it on, because the part
wasn't written the way it turned out. It was just a kids' movie and kind
of out there.

The Weitz brothers
asked me how I wanted to change the character. We'd sit down and do some
improvisations, and that was the way the scenes turned out, mostly. The
Weitz' are really quite brilliant.

MCN: Not
many real-life dads would be nearly as willing to help their sons cut
through all the anxiety of achieving manhood.

EL: I
wanted him to be a well-meaning father. I didn't want him to become one
of the boys, or join in the sex deal. I wanted him to be removed and
supportive of his son.

When you come down
into the kitchen and find your son humping a pie, you just don't take
out the belt. It was, 'Well, how do we deal with this. We'll just tell
your mom we ate it all."

MCN: Were
the Weitz' looking for an Earl Camembert archetype?

EL: They
wanted me for this movie because they loved my work, and I think SCTV
was a big part of it. For some reason they saw the fit between me and my
character long before I did.

They were quite
flexible about me reworking the character. They gave me carte blanche.

MCN: That
was very smart of them.

EL: I think
so, too. The writer, Adam Herz, also went along with the changes,
and it became part of the process.

Long after even the most celebrated
guitarists of this age have been forgotten, their picking hands
turned to putrid dust, Nigel Tufnel will be hailed for his
manifold contributions to rock and roll. Tufnel's brilliant
two-decade plus stint as lead guitarist with England's
now-legendary Spinal Tap has earned him an eternal place in the
pantheon of rock guitar legends. His pioneering use of such
techniques as "hair popping," his virtuosic facial contortions,
and his gut-wrenching solos on anthems like (Tonight I'm Gonna)
Rock You Tonight have delighted millions and caused thousands of
guitarists to set themselves ablaze.Nigel was
in rare form during our all-too-brief conversation, from which
the following exclusive, private lesson was culled. Composed,
candid and virtually overflowing with phlegm and keen insight,
the personable guitarist demonstrated why, as repulsive
pretenders come and go, he and Spinal Tap remain magnificent, if
malodorous, fixtures in the world of hard rock.

GUITAR WORLD:
There are reports that you've devised a Nigel Tufnel Theory of
Music. What exactly is this theory?NIGEL TUFNEL: This is an exclusive
 it's not been published before. Here's the theory: People read
music, and they read notes on what they call a staff. But if you
can't read music, you can't play music that is written. Correct?
You're with me on that? Good. Now, everyone knows how to count,
don't they? Let me hear you count to five.GW: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.TUFNEL: Good. Now, A is the first
letter of the alphabet. Yes? So A would be...?GW: 1?TUFNEL: Yes! So on a chart,
instead of writing A in music terms-we're playing in the
key
of A-you go: I for A, 2 for B, 1 for A and 3 for C. See?
[Fig. 1] That's so much simpler.GW: What happens in the case of a
chord like G13?TUFNEL: Okay. This is my other
theory:
If you're playing that type of music, you shouldn't be doing it.GW: Shouldn't be doing the Nigel
Tufnel Theory of Music?TUFNEL: No  you shouldn't be
playing
music! Because what good are people who do that jazzy sort of
stuff? It's all too low-volume. Have you noticed that? What are
they trying to hide? What have they got to be embarrassed about?
If you're a good player, you play loud so people can hear
it-that's why we plug these things in. If you play an electric
guitar  I don't care if it's a Gibson 175 or a Charlie
Christian  turn the fuckin' thing up!
To those people who do that 13th stuff I say, "By the time you count to
13, who cares? The song's over anyway. So let's play some
serious rock and roll." It's all very impressive, I suppose, for
some musicologists who play jazz and all that  let them have
their way. But they must be afraid of something if they're not
playing loud.GW: Getting back to the Nigel
Tufnel Theory of Music: where does a B flat fit in?TUFNEL: I've invented a little
symbol to deal with that. You know how it is in music
notation-the flat one looks like a little B [b] and the sharp
one looks like crosses with a little square in the middle [#].
Well, my system replaces those with different-sized circles. The
basis for this is Stonehenge, which is designed around a
circular theme. You'd know this if you were ever in a helicopter
or plane looking down on Stonehenge. You haven't? [Shakes
head with contemptuous wonderment.] Let me show you how this
all relates on a piece of paper: Here's my music chart
[Fig. 2]. We'll make it a trite, pornographic ditty and call
it Wolf's Song. Now, the chords would be A-A-B-A-Ab.GW: What if it was A#?TUFNEL: Aha! Put the circle up
here [Fig. 3]. It's easy to read-flats are lower and
sharps are higher. Now, the other thing I'm doing is taking
unpleasant folk songs and turning them into things that people
can appreciate. For instance, if an exhausted thing like Skip To
My Lou is done loudly enough, it's no longer the strict property
of social workers specializing in geriatric care. Because old
folks will say, "Oh Cor, turn it down! It's too fuckin' loud!" I
say, play it loud and it's for everyone  except the old folks.GW: What new technical tricks have
you got up your greasy sleeve these days?TUFNEL: On the new record, I do
some scatting while I play guitar. It's live  I don't know any
other way of doing it  and I don't use a talk tube like the old
boys do. It's hard to describe the maneuver, but
let's
say you're playing in C [plays Fig. 4]. People think,
"What's that noise? Who's doing that?" But it's an illusion  an
aural illusion, a sort of parlor trick. It's my voice, you see.
It's really just my voice with the guitar.GW: Do you practice this technique?TUFNEL: No, there's nothing to practice 
it's all improv. You can't practice it; you just wake up and do
it.GW: What about intonation and rhythmic
synchronization?TUFNEL: Well, I suppose you could
practice it, but I don't. It just developed naturally  sort of
like a rash. If you wake up in the morning and you feel, "Oh
hell, this is itching!" You lower your trousers, you look down
and you say, "Oh hell, it's a rash, isn't it?!" You don't
practice a rash, you just let it evolve and grow and spread.
This is really very much like that.GW: Could you demonstrate the most
important elements of the idea?TUFNEL: Sure. First, we'll show hand,
then mouth, then both together. For example, this would be the
first note [Photo A] and this would be my mouth's first
note [Photo B]. Together they are.. .[Photo C].
See? This is the hand and mouth position for the third note
[Photos D and E]. Next, the combination [Photo F].
The tough one, of course, is the high E. The kids probably
shouldn't try to do this one without some sort of warmup. I
recommend a bowl of hot porridge or a tankard of steaming
Ovaltine.

GW: How do
you incorporate harmonics into your playing?TUFNEL: I'll demonstrate: Begin by
barring across here [Fig.
5 and Photo G]. What you've got is sort of a minor chord
[note: D minor  the tonic chord in "the saddest of all keys].
There are easier ways of playing this, no doubt, but that's not
the point. The point is that these [2nd and 3rd fingers: see
Photo H] set up a sympathetic vibration.GW:
That's very subtle. The fingers actually vibrate?TUFNEL:[Nods, smiles
condescendingly] The fingers vibrate. Where do you think the
sound goes? It doesn't go into a hole and disappear and shout,
"Help me, doctor, I'm alone." It emanates from the guitar. So,
it goes out here [from the chord] and there's an
imperceptible vibration between these two fingers [2nd and
3rd] as it happens. The lower you go down the neck, the more
slowly they vibrate. As you go higher [Photo I], they
vibrate quite rapidly. And funnily enough, it's an overtone 
always an overtone.

GW: Any
other new developments on the fingerboard front?TUFNEL: I've got another wonderful
trick I do. Let me draw your attention to the screws on the
pickup. [Photo J]. You'll notice that these are Phillips
screws, but the middle one [Photo K] is a regular screw 
a straight screw. Most people have two straight screws made of
titanium and a Phillips made of magnesium. Now, if you flip them
 as I do  there's a whole different interaction between the
pickups, even with single-coils. But these humbucker pickups in
particular reverberate in a very different way. It's all about
reverberation  that's what all this is about. They must be
switched for reverberation. That's for people who are into
rewiring their guitars.GW: Do you modify your guitar in
any other way?TUFNEL: Here's another thing. Most
people think that once you're off the frets, you go, "Lordy! I
can't go any further than the F!" Wrong. Of course you can go
further than the F  if you want it bad enough. And I do,
sometimes. But as you go diving down to the nut, it's very easy
to hurt your finger. As you can see, I've got festering wounds 
see the pus?  here from diving onto the nut one too many times.
So I've designed a great, patent-pending device  which has yet
to be installed on this guitar  called a Nut Cozy. It's a
little knit thing, made of wool, that fits over the nut. I've
also designed a Tone Cozy, a similar thing that fits over a
control knob. It droops a little bit. Next, of course, will be a
Volume Cozy. I've got a little cottage industry going, producing
them, and readers will be able to send away for

them soon. My Nut Cozy is great, because
if you bash your finger down here [Photo L] it's soft.GW: Have you ever discovered any
valuable techniques by pure chance?TUFNEL: Sure. A lot of the younger
kids tend to play their guitars hung way down on their knees.
They play real low because they think it looks sexy or something
 God knows what they're doing. Anyway, that sort of thing is
impractical for the older player, or the old at heart; there's
too much weight on your back. So what I do is, I use a short
strap and have the guitar sitting higher. Now this was the
accident: One

night I was playing up here [Photo M],
and my hair, by mistake, got on the strings [Photo N].
And what I discovered, by accident, is that this contact

triggered an organic overtone. You see, if something like metal
touches the string, it's not organic. But if it's part of your
body, it's totally organic, and it sets off a very beautiful
resonance. All the great players are aware of these things.GW: Does "hair touching" actually
produce a distinctive tone?TUFNEL: Yeah. You'll hear a lot of
hair popping in my solo on Christmas With The Devil. You'll also
hear a lick in that solo based on chromatism [chromaticism].
It's beyond anything musical. If you play a scale, it's just a
scale  it doesn't link people together. Chromatism does 
because it's from chromosomes!GW: What is your view of the of
the guitar's role in music?TUFNEL: Well, every instrument has
its own personality. For example, I love the piano for the depth
of its feeling. But the piano is not really an instrument  it's
really taking an orchestra, shrinking the people and putting
them in a box. The guitar is actually an opera singer with a
long neck. If you're not making it sing, you might as well go
home.GW: I'm going home.